Comet Section        

 
 

May 1, 2020 – ALPO Comet News for May 2020

Most of us comet watchers may all be in lockdown, but the heavens are giving us plenty to watch. Recent discoveries have produced a number of reasonably bright comets to observe. As many as 6 comets should be brighter than 10th magnitude this May. The brightest is C/2020 F8 (SWAN). After a recent outburst at the end of April, SWAN is currently around 5th magnitude and a borderline naked eye object for observers in the southern hemisphere. Southern observers will also be able to watch C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) brighten to 7th magnitude and C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) brighten to 8th magnitude. Northern observers have their own collection of bright objects to observe including C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS), C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS), and the disintegrating remains of C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). If it remains a bright object, C/2020 F8 (SWAN) may also be visible, with difficulty, from the northern hemisphere later in the month. As if the above weren’t interesting enough, a number of slightly fainter but still interesting comets can be observed just fainter than 10th magnitude.

The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. Note with all of the recent comet activity, this report is a bit large in size. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/705417-alpo-comet-news-for-may-2020/). All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.

- Carl Hergenrother

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